Yesterday evening, former CIA officer Robert Baer (SFS `76) spoke at the Alumni House on 36 and O St. Described by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh as “perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East,” Baer’s story served as the inspiration for the movie Syriana.

Baer was a recent college graduate working as a teller at Bank of America and taking Chinese classes in Berkeley, California when he decided to apply for a job in the CIA. Although he didn’t expect anything from the enormous application, he was hired and sent the to “the farm” in Northern Virginia.

Eventually, Baer found himself in Iraq, where he tried to persuade the U.S. government to support an assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein. The Clinton Administration balked, and he returned to U.S. facing an FBI investigation into his conduct. Baer was cleared and eventually received the CIA’s Career Intelligence Medal.

The most interesting part of the evening came when Baer provided his thoughts on the Middle East and Iran. Bear believes that, “Iran could be the United States strongest ally in the Middle East.” He also said that the United States must “work out a deal with Iran” before leaving Iraq. He was harshly critical of the Washington establishment which he sees as obstructive and couter-productive. Near the end of his talk he described the Iraq War as the “the greatest folly” for the US.

Students stayed to hear Bear answer questions for well over an hour after his thirty minute opening address. At one point, a woman approached the stage indicating that she could dismiss the crowd. Baer didn’t skip a beat. He asked “Are you running me out of here?” and continued to take questions from the eager crowd.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.